WHERE WE STAND NOW
by former government professor David Dessler
December 15, 2019
As we approach the end of 2019, the seven arrests are water under the bridge. They are no longer an issue. I will never be arrested or threatened with arrest again. No other students, faculty, or staff at W&M will be arrested. That era of College history is over. No one is looking back.
No one involved in my arrests is going to face legal or disciplinary action. I am not asking for such action, and the College has no interest in carrying out any such action if the cause of justice does not require it. I was arrested seven times, but my only concern has been to make clear that the wrongdoing was entirely on the side of those arresting me. I do not believe I could have made a more convincing case. Each of the seven arrests was based on false charges known to be false at the time. The sequence of arrests revealed an increasingly desperate campaign of malicious prosecution. Eleven misdemeanor warrants were issued against me; not one came close to showing the probable cause necessary to justify the arrests. No one at the College contests these claims any longer.
If one thinks this is not a good ending for me, my only point is that my situation--and the President's, and the College's, and the faculty's, and the students', and the Board's--cannot be improved by any investigation or any remedial or corrective action. I have moved on. Because I lived through these events, I do not want to talk about them. I am not anyone's adversary on campus or off it.
Similarly, no one involved in my initial suspension and no-trespass order, the unrelenting harassment of me through the criminal justice system, including my arrests and incarceration, the ending of my salary and benefits of employment 10 1/2 months before I submitted my resignation, the blocking and banning of my emails to individuals at the College, and the other abuses I faced over the last four years will be accused of wrongdoing, investigated, or sanctioned.
I am satisfied with the conclusions drawn by the Faculty Assembly investigation in the fall of 2016, the EEOC investigation in the fall of 2017, and the lawsuit and legal settlement in the spring of 2018. The facts that those inquiries, deliberations, discussions made public make the case I wanted to make. Those facts are public. They remain available to anyone who wants to learn the truth of this case and who has an internet connection.
As with my arrests in particular, my aim in this episode in general has been to make clear that I did nothing wrong and that all wrongdoing in this case, insofar as there was any, was the responsibility of certain individuals employed by the College and other people not employed by the College who worked with them. No one who looks at the facts of this case honestly argues that such a conclusion does not follow from the facts. Nor do they defend any conclusion but this one. The factual case is so strong that it supports this conclusion as true "beyond a reasonable doubt." Because this is the highest standard of proof one can meet in a dispute like this one, there is no need for further investigation, analysis, or discussion.
I have no interest in actions or deliberations that revisit the past. Neither does anyone at William & Mary. I am not presently employed but I am continuing the work I began during this recent period of legal controversy and I would like the opportunity to help others at William & Mary transform the College into President Rowe's vision of the Alma Mater of the Nation. I am confident President Rowe and the Board of Visitors will value the contribution I can make, even if others contribute much more.
I never dropped the important work I had been assigned the year I was President of the Faculty Assembly (2014-2015), which dealt with issues of undergraduate research, sexual assault, and mental health care. Indeed, I expanded those projects and reshaped them to fit the new administration's vision. Some work was published in the Flat Hat in 2018-2019. I am not requesting to be permitted to do any work that is not welcome and valued by the College community in precisely the way my governance work was welcome and valued from the mid-1990s through my Assembly presidency in 2015.
Nothing that I am asking to do undercuts, endangers, marginalizes, or diminishes others. Indeed, what I want to do will empower others. The scenarios I contemplate are win-win. My record of governance at W&M over the last twenty years proves I can be effective in just this kind of work.
It's time to build a bright future for William & Mary, according to President Rowe's ambitious vision, starting now. See below, in a single screenshot, how things have already changed.
No one involved in my arrests is going to face legal or disciplinary action. I am not asking for such action, and the College has no interest in carrying out any such action if the cause of justice does not require it. I was arrested seven times, but my only concern has been to make clear that the wrongdoing was entirely on the side of those arresting me. I do not believe I could have made a more convincing case. Each of the seven arrests was based on false charges known to be false at the time. The sequence of arrests revealed an increasingly desperate campaign of malicious prosecution. Eleven misdemeanor warrants were issued against me; not one came close to showing the probable cause necessary to justify the arrests. No one at the College contests these claims any longer.
If one thinks this is not a good ending for me, my only point is that my situation--and the President's, and the College's, and the faculty's, and the students', and the Board's--cannot be improved by any investigation or any remedial or corrective action. I have moved on. Because I lived through these events, I do not want to talk about them. I am not anyone's adversary on campus or off it.
Similarly, no one involved in my initial suspension and no-trespass order, the unrelenting harassment of me through the criminal justice system, including my arrests and incarceration, the ending of my salary and benefits of employment 10 1/2 months before I submitted my resignation, the blocking and banning of my emails to individuals at the College, and the other abuses I faced over the last four years will be accused of wrongdoing, investigated, or sanctioned.
I am satisfied with the conclusions drawn by the Faculty Assembly investigation in the fall of 2016, the EEOC investigation in the fall of 2017, and the lawsuit and legal settlement in the spring of 2018. The facts that those inquiries, deliberations, discussions made public make the case I wanted to make. Those facts are public. They remain available to anyone who wants to learn the truth of this case and who has an internet connection.
As with my arrests in particular, my aim in this episode in general has been to make clear that I did nothing wrong and that all wrongdoing in this case, insofar as there was any, was the responsibility of certain individuals employed by the College and other people not employed by the College who worked with them. No one who looks at the facts of this case honestly argues that such a conclusion does not follow from the facts. Nor do they defend any conclusion but this one. The factual case is so strong that it supports this conclusion as true "beyond a reasonable doubt." Because this is the highest standard of proof one can meet in a dispute like this one, there is no need for further investigation, analysis, or discussion.
I have no interest in actions or deliberations that revisit the past. Neither does anyone at William & Mary. I am not presently employed but I am continuing the work I began during this recent period of legal controversy and I would like the opportunity to help others at William & Mary transform the College into President Rowe's vision of the Alma Mater of the Nation. I am confident President Rowe and the Board of Visitors will value the contribution I can make, even if others contribute much more.
I never dropped the important work I had been assigned the year I was President of the Faculty Assembly (2014-2015), which dealt with issues of undergraduate research, sexual assault, and mental health care. Indeed, I expanded those projects and reshaped them to fit the new administration's vision. Some work was published in the Flat Hat in 2018-2019. I am not requesting to be permitted to do any work that is not welcome and valued by the College community in precisely the way my governance work was welcome and valued from the mid-1990s through my Assembly presidency in 2015.
Nothing that I am asking to do undercuts, endangers, marginalizes, or diminishes others. Indeed, what I want to do will empower others. The scenarios I contemplate are win-win. My record of governance at W&M over the last twenty years proves I can be effective in just this kind of work.
It's time to build a bright future for William & Mary, according to President Rowe's ambitious vision, starting now. See below, in a single screenshot, how things have already changed.
KATHERINE A. ROWE'S
WILLIAM & MARY
Alma Mater of the Nation
